Everyone is looking at the class resident idiot a.k.a. the female protagonist.

After the recent triple reviews for sports anime, we now returns to the more familiar genre of shounen with my review of the 2 seasons of Zero no Tsukaima series. This series is unique because it will simultaneously compete with Kiba the TV Animation and Nodame Cantabile for the 2006 and 2007 Anime of The Year titles. Now let’s se if this anime can even challenge those 2 distinguished series.

Story:-A dorky wannabe magician who has a very high failure rate in magic casting failed her familiar (which is some kind of servant) summoning test and has to settle with a human as her familiar. The unfortunate human that was spirited away from modern Japan has to deal with his masochist master who likes to whip him every time she has the chance. Then some kind of plot emerges and that’s it. For 2 seasons.

Actually the background story is quite decent if you can withstand the annoying and indecisive female protagonist. It flows smoothly with great pacing. At least I think this series’ story is better than the more heralded Shakugan no Shana. This series do not have an ending yet, and I smell a third season on the horizon because there are so many thing not tied-up yet. Character developments are done well, with the likable main protagonist being the best character in the series. But the less said about the female main protagonist, the better (she is definitely one of the worst tsundere characters I have ever seen).

Character Design:-The character design in this anime is typical of the genre. The male protagonist (and another character) incidentally has black hair, mainly because it is an important fact on the series. For the rest, black is an alien colour for them. Anyway, they are all very well done.

Voice acting:-Voice acting in this anime is just like character design, i.e. very well done. There are no standouts though.

Music:-The OST is excellent across the 2 seasons, but all the OP/ED themes are crap.

Animation/Direction:-The animation is decent, and improves in the 2nd season. It did not suffer in fast-paced scenes but the choreography for them is only average. And so are for the directing, with the exception of the control of the storyline.

Conclusion:-6 out of 10. And that’s about it. Nodame Cantabile and Kiba the TV Animation still holds their respective titles.